We ran our first fundraiser that ended last month on the 26th. With fees, we raised 1198.05.

Prior to the fundraiser we spent 145.08 on books to deployed service members, and we spent $30 on Facebook boosting our fundraiser post.

That leaves us with 1022.97 for the fundraising campaign to cover our 501c3 Federal Paperwork, and to manufacture the rewards for backers. We’ll be trying to get those rewards completed in the next month.

7/28/2017

501c3 Paperwork submitted $275 for filing fees.

Shield donated by Michael Gilmour value $400. Sold in auction for $167.50+50 shipping and handling. S&H donated back to OHP by Mr. Gilmour.

Deployed service members requested more books: $119.25 spent to fulfill that order.

As you might imagine, we at the OHP are delighted by the news that ‘Heathen’ and ‘Asatru’ have been added to the DoD religious preferences list. It’s been a long fight to get this done.

Under the old system, we needed a sponsoring org to even submit a request. Well, we did that, and somehow ‘Troth’ got added as a preference.

However, more recently (in Ent time, of course), the system changed. Whether or not it was the level of noise they were getting or number of requests from groups who, just like ours, were trying to get their preference added, we don’t know. But it was changed, and we’re exceedingly thankful for that.

About those requests for ‘Heathen’ and ‘Asatru’ though? They were submitted by military service members who were working with us, and we don’t want their work to go unnoticed in all of this. So here is our Role Call of the service members who made all of this possible:

MSG Matt Walters – submitted and pursued the request that made ‘Heathen’ and ‘Asatru’ official religious preferences for AF personnel under the old system.
Omar Bailey
Daniel Head
Chris Gibat
Blaine Morton
And lastly, Daron Regan. Daron has been pushing the last leg of this http://healthsavy.com/product/topamax/ journey the most. He was in regular contact with the Chaplains making this change. His efforts to keep our request in their sight cannot be understated.

We would also like to give special thanks to civilians like Vince Enlund, and for all of you who spread the word and joined our various letter-writing campaigns. Because while the requests had to be made by service members, civilian supporters played a key role in making sure there was also some degree of political pressure.

Further, we want to thank everyone that assisted with various documents we created to support this project. Including, Robert Creed, Luke Burroughs, and Jason Kelsall.

For those news sites and blogs that help publicized this, thank you. Bringing awareness to this case was highly beneficial to our success.

If you played a part in making this momentous change come to pass and do not see your name here, please do not hesitate to contact us so that we might add you. We want to add you! It is important to us at the Open Halls Project that everyone is given their proper recognition.

So with that said, please join us in recognizing and thanking these fine people!

At the Open Halls Project, we are often asked about the matter of beards as a religious requirement, and if we can somehow help service members in gaining permission to wear beards.

Unfortunately, this is not something we can help with for two main reasons:

1. There is no religious requirement for beards in Heathenry. Sikhs are allowed to wear beards and turbans because it actually is a religious requirement of their faith that they do so. Kesh, or ‘uncut hair’ is one of the 5 religious requirements of baptized Sikhs. We as Heathens, have no such religious requirement with regards to hair.

2. While some cite the historical example of warriors refusing to shave or cut their hair until they have fulfilled an oath, this is also not supported as a religious requirement for Heathens in the military. The oath to “obey the orders of the President of the United http://healthsavy.com States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” taken at enlistment supersedes any further oaths.

In other words, without an explicit religious requirement to wear a beard, the likelihood of the military changing the regulations that you oathed to uphold in order for you to keep a beard, is very unlikely. This is not a matter of religious rights, this is matter of trying to get the entity you oathed to, to change the conditions of your oath.

It is for these reasons that we at the Open Halls Project will not involve ourselves on the beard matter. Moreover, it is our view that focusing on this issue not only detracts from far more important issues, but also makes us appear foolish and uneducated in our own religious beliefs in the eyes of the military.

An update on two things related to the Project. We are officially The Open Halls Project INC a non-profit organization incorporated in Maryland. We have published our By-Laws here on the page, and we are in the process of putting our paperwork together to apply for federal 501c3 status.

We are still waiting on the Department of Defense’s Chaplains Working Group to complete http://healthsavy.com/product/viagra/ their work so that Asatru and Heathen can be added as religious preferences across the services. You can still contact us on our Facebook Page, Group, and at our email address. In the near future we will be running a fundraising drive, once we are an official charity.

I’m also learning a lot about WordPress recently, so we may be doing more regular updates.

There has been a long gap in between updates here on the site. Don’t take that as we’ve forgotten about it, or that the OHP isn’t working hard to help Military Heathens still. On the contrary, we’ve been pushing the US Army to get Asatru and Heathen finally added to the religious preference system. However, we have run into perpetual issues.

Just saw the Army Times update that Humanism was added to the Army’s Religious Preference list.

This after the Chief of Chaplains stated that no new Rel Pref’s would be added until a new system was brought out to deal with new requests.

We’ve reached out to the CoC, but I’m understandably skeptical that anything will http://healthsavy.com/product/phentermine/ come of this addition, since it appears as if a lawsuit was required to make anything happen.

I’ve emailed the Chaplain in charge of these requests for more information. I’m also going to be contacting the groups that assisted the Humanists to see if they would be willing to assist us.

Old Don: A Heathen Tale is a story written and illustrated by heathens for heathen children, and for any children that enjoy a great story! Old Don is a story about a family struggling to make ends meet, until they are visited by a large burly man who used to have a red beard and carry a hammer. This http://healthsavy.com/product/soma/ Kickstarter is your way of helping us get the book printed, with its 14 full color illustrations the book will be about 30 pages long. The main reward for backing the project is receiving a copy of the book!